Wow, this jumps at you! I don't know where else to put this
fantastic image of the sunken Titanic, so here it is. A starkly beautiful
tombstone for all those wonderful and not so wonderful people who went down
with her (some of the survivors, like Bruce Ismay, CEO of the White Star Line,
were cowardly cads when you consider the nobility of famous rich capitalists
like Astor, Strauss, and Guggenheim when it came to the crunch). RIP. To me, the
Titanic
disaster ranks right up there as one of the most tragic events, in the
hubristic sense of Greek Tragedy, that ever happened. Everything about it is
fascinating. (Well, the Hindenberg was kind of neat too, but I don't want to sound
like a ghoul for catastrophes)
Titanic Sources:
Recently read two novels about the Titanic: Beryl Bainbridge's
Every Man for Himself and Robert Serling's Something's Alive on
the Titanic, two totally different approaches to the subject.
The last survivor of Titanic, Edith Haisman, died at the age
of 100 on January 22, 1997.
The Movie 'Titanic'
I waited a long time to write this movie review, mainly because for all its hype I never got around to
seeing it on the big screen and finally caught it on video at someone's house. Seeing it that way surely spoiled it as far as the special effects, which were wonderful, were concerned, but I had a reluctance to go
to the movie, too. As a long-time Titanic "fan" (over 30 years), I didn't want to see another Hollywood distortion (do you remember the awful 'Poseidon Adventure'?) of a sinking
ship with a cast of cliches pretending to be real people.
Needn't have worried -- it was accurate enough historically. My biggest complaint was the emphasis
on the pretty boring love story at the expense of the other people. One of my all-time favorite real-time
Titanic survivors was Archibald Gracie (he who willed Gracie mansion to the city of New York as the
official Mayoral residence). He actually went down with the ship (like the movie hero) -- in fact one
of the funnels fell on him, splashing him out of the suction of the sinking ship, and he managed to
climb onto the back of one of the overturned 'collapsible' lifeboats that were up in the bridge area.
Not a thing about that in the movie, unfortunately.
This is probably one of those events that would have been better as a TV miniseries spread over
several episodes where they could have developed sub-plots. Then show the actual sinking in a
nice three-hour final episode with no commercial interruptions. Ah, well, dream on....
Still, it was an impressive movie and deserves its reputation.
The Queen Mary
The sad state of one of the greatest of the old
transatlantic steamships (like the Titanic, the Lusitania, the
Normandie, and the Queen Elizabeth, she came to a bad end,
but there is no dignity or drama in this fate)
Web Pages:
I sailed on this ship (Queen Mary) in March 1967, New York to
Southampton, on what must have been one of her last crossings. Very few passengers,
and the weather was atrocious (waves were bigger than the ship, as huge as the ship
was). Spent most of the time in that marvellous art-deco bar that was in the curved
area under the bridge. Don't know if they kept that when they created the hotel; pity
if they didn't.
Also made two crossings on the Queen Elizabeth (not QE2). Altogether, I did a half
dozen or so transatlantic crossings (both ways) by ocean liner, as opposed to about
20 by air, and one could guess which was better, but alas, these days....
[By the way, if anybody out there in the Internet happens to read
this page, and has something to say about the Queen Mary, the Queen
Elizabeth (1), the Empress of Britain (out of Montreal up the St.
Laurence to Liverpool, wow), the Nieuw Amsterdam, the France or the
United States (actually forget which one of the last two I crossed on although I
visited both to meet or see people off), the Rotterdam, or the Zuidercruis, please
let me know at this address.]
Those were the days....Queen Mary was absolutely the
best ship I was ever on -- the scenes in the BBC Brideshead Revisited miniseries that
took place on a liner sum up the atmosphere entirely (although unfortunately
I didn't have a lovely woman to have an affair with on that crossing, so I spent
most of the time in the bar with a Welshman who was also lamenting the fact
that there were no women under 60 years old on board). There is practically
nothing more pleasurable than a shipboard romance on a five-day transatlantic
crossing (NOT a cruise ship), but that didn't happen on this particular voyage.
The Queen Elizabeth (QE1)-- no individual site on the Internet, but a great ship
that went down in Hong Kong (arson?) and appeared in its scuttled state in a
James Bond movie. This was a wonderful ship, even better than the Queen Mary
-- she was the pride of the Cunard Line, which has never really been the same
since those days even though they try to push the QE2 as the last gasp of
the golden age of transatlantic ships
The Normandie (the arch-rival of the QE1) -- also has no Internet site, but my God this
is a nice sleek-looking ship! Absolutely beautiful. It's destruction in NY harbor
by fire in World War II (probably set by German agents) was an act against
civilization
There are too few Internet sites for classic ocean liners but I found one
that had practically all of the great ships: click HERE. This site is wonderful!
Note: This was a great site, but it has disappeared (checked Feb 98). Does
anybody know where it moved to, or is it now just defunct?
Here is another one that is quite good:
Monsters of the Sea (not sure I like that title!)
